12 RELATIONS OF FUNGI TO OTHER PLANTS 



more or less of a supply of organic matter in the water ready to 

 be appropriated, found it easier to absorb than to construct, and 

 gradually lessened their amount of chlorophyl until they came 

 ultimately to live entirely on what they absorbed. As among 

 higher beings the step from independence and productiveness to 

 indolence and beggary was a simple one. In other cases the 

 simple algae doubtless assumed the parasitic condition in order to 

 receive protection from their host ; once inside, where an abundant 

 supply of nutrition was present to be had for the taking, the step 

 from parasitic alga with green chlorophyl of its own to a parasitic 

 fungus without chlorophyl was natural and almost inevitable. 



2. It is likewise probable that certain of the higher forms of 

 fungi that have lost their sexual methods of reproduction have 

 been derived from the lower fungi. While they have become 

 more differentiated structurally, they have lost the only functional 

 activity that would insure them the possibility of rising above 

 mediocrity, and without sexuality and without the power of loco- 

 motion, they have left only the possibility of squatter sovereignty 

 and their inferior position in the vegetable world is forever fixed. 



3. The near approach of certain of the spore-sac fungi (As- 

 comycetes) to the red algae renders it highly probable that some 

 of the higher algae have in like manner become physiologically 

 degenerated into some of the higher fungi. 



4. Of the conflicting schools of belief respecting the origin of 

 the higher fungi it is likely, as in most cases where there is con- 

 tention, that both parties are partially right, and that the higher 

 fungi instead of representing a compact group with a common 

 origin, took their rise from several widely different sources. 



